The Lord of the Rings (1978)

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"Had it said 'Part One,' I think everyone would have respected it."

— Ralph Bakshi

The Lord of the Rings (1978)
"This film adaptation shall not PASS."
Genre: Dark Fantasy Adventure War Directed by: Raplh Bakshi Produced by: Fantasy Films Written by: Peter S. Beagle Chris Conkling Based on: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Starring: Christopher Guard William Squire Michael Scholes John Hurt Simon Chandler Dominic Guard Michael Graham Cox Anthony Daniels David Buck Cinematography: Timothy Galfas Distributed by: United Artists Release date: November 15, 1978 Runtime: 133 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $4 Million Box office: $30.5 Million (U.S./Canada) $3.2 Million (U.K.) Franchise: The Lord of the Rings Sequel: The Lord of the Rings: Part 2 (cancelled)

The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 American animated dark fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi, who was best known for making adult-animated films. It is based on The Lord of the Rings written by J.R.R. Tolkien. Rather than having all of the material from the entire book series, it only contains material from The Fellowship of the Ring and some material from both books of The Two Towers. Part two for the film was planned to finish up the story but was cancelled. The film is well known for having heavy use of rotoscoping techniques along with cel animation. Upon release, The Lord of the Rings received mixed reviews from critics and gained dislike from fans of the books who were angry that the film was unfinished. Later, the film would go on to become a major influence on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Plot

Many years after these events, Bilbo hosts his going away birthday party, and afterwards, the wizard Gandalf talks to Bilbo about giving Frodo the One Ring. Bilbo begins to refuse but ultimately accepts and gives Gandalf the ring. Seventeen years later, Gandalf visits Frodo and begins to discuss with him about the ring. He tells him that evil forces have learned about a Baggins owning the ring and he tells him about the danger the ring has. He tells Frodo to leave his home and to bring the ring with him to the elven city of Rivendell. However, Frodo's friend named Sam and cousins named Merry and Pippin soon join him on his adventure. Around this time, Gandalf decides to talk to Saruman but is captured by him due to the wizard's intentions to join the dark lord Sauron.

After an encounter with one of the Black Riders while leaving the Shire, Frodo and the company decided to stop at the village Bree, where they stop to rest. However, they soon meet the warrior Strider, one of Gandalf's friends, who reveals himself to be Prince Aragorn soon after. During that time, however, the Black Riders know that Bree is where Frodo is staying and the party narrowly avoids death by them. Aragon joins Frodo on his quest to get to Rivendell.

During the journey to Rivendell, the group is assaulted by Black Riders. During the fight, Frodo puts on the ring to turn invisible, but that alerts the Black Riders to him, and Frodo is stabbed by one of their knives. If the group doesn't get to Rivendell soon, Frodo will die of the wound. After the elf Legolas joins the group, the Black Riders attack again, but are stopped.

Frodo awakes in Rivendell, healed by King Elron, with Gandalf by his side. Gandalf was able to escape Saruman's tower by calling upon the king of the great eagles, stating Saruman "never paid any attention to animals". Frodo also meets Bilbo in Rivendell, who asks to see the ring but ultimately resists the temptation of it. In Rivendell, a meeting is held with KIng Elron and other company to discuss the fate of the Ring. They eventually decide to bring the ring to Mordor, where it can be destroyed in the fires of Mount Doom where it was made. The company to be brought along for the journey are Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and the new company of Boromir the human warrior and a dwarf named Gimli.

The group, now known as the Fellowship of the Ring, attempts to cross the Misty Mountains to reach Mordor faster but is foiled by a large storm caused by Sauron's reach, which concerns Gandalf. The group stops to decide where to continue next, with Frodo deciding that the group has no choice but the enter the underground city of Moria, which was once a dwarven mine. They reach the entrance and after some difficulty, open the door. However, they are threatened by a creature in the water, which locks the group into the mine. They enter to find no one to be found and ultimately learn of the faes of the dwarves there. However, before the Fellowship can leave the mine, they are attacked by a band of orcs, which are then followed by the arrival of a deadly creature known as the Balrog. Gandalf tells the Fellowship to flee as he distracts the Balrog. He is soon brought down by the Balrog as he sends it in the depths of the mine.

After narrowly escaping Moria, the group stops for a rest and continues on to the elven city of Lothlórien. They are greeted by Queen Galadriel, who discusses with Frodo and Sam about the future. She shows them a magical mirror that can show the past, present, and what may be, with Frodo thinking that he sees Gandalf in the mirror. After the rest in Lothlórien, the Fellowship continues on their journey.

As the group stops for rest once again, Boromir comes to discuss with Frodo about the ring, demanding Frodo to give the ring to him. Scared by Boromir's madness, Frodo puts on the ring and runs away from the camp to get to Mordor on his own. However, Sam finds Frodo and demands to join him to Mordor and Frodo agrees. The rest of the Fellowship realize that Frodo and Sam are missing and find Boromir angry with himself for what has happened. The Fellowship splits up into two groups, with Merry and Pippin grouped with Boromir and Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas in their own group to find them. However, Boromir is attacked by a group of orcs and after being stricken by man arrows and putting up a large fight, he is able to send a signal to Aragorn's group to find him before succumbing to his wounds. The orcs take Merry and Pippin with them and leave Boromir's body. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas find Boromir, who tells them with his last breath that it was the orcs that took Merry and Pippin and he finally dies in peace. The group holds a short funeral for him and begins to search for the orc group that took Merry and Pippin.

The orc group intends to take Merry and Pippin to Isengard by traveling through Rohan. However, Merry and Pippin escape the orcs and find themselves in the forest. There, they are found by an ent named Treebeard, who takes Merry and Pippin with them. Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas track the hobbits to the forest, where they find Gandalf, causing much surprise to the group. Gandalf was able to escape the abyss in which he feel and it took him much time to find the group. He tells them that they must go to Rohan's capital known as Edoras, where they must persuade the king there to tell his people that they are in danger and must prepare for a battle against the orc armies.

Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam continue their quest to Mount Doom in Mordor where they find Gollum. The creature had been following them in an attempt to gain the ring back. Frodo and Sam capture Gollum but do not kill him for pity. Instead, they decide to use him to guide them to Mount Doom, to which he reluctantly agrees. However, Gollum begins plotting betrayal on Frodo and Sam.

Gandalf manages to persuade King Théoden of Edoras to summon his men to defend Helm's Deep. However, the battle is already raging in Helm's Deep, with Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas commanding the battle, but realize that the orc forces are way too plentiful and decide to fall back. After falling back, they are found by the orc forces and are nearly wiped out. Just when all hope seems lost, Gandalf and the Riders of Rohan appear and destroy the orc forces, with the film ending with the voiceover of "The forces of darkness were driven forever from the face of Middle-Earth by the valiant friends of Frodo. As their gallant battle ended, so, too, ends the first great tale of The Lord of the Rings".

Bad Qualities

1. Very inconsistent animation that makes the film look very different from one scene to the next, making viewers feel like they are watching a completely different film. In the first twenty minutes of the film, we use traditional animation of the characters, although thanks to cel animation we have very realistic movements from the characters, making the film look pretty clean.
2. On the same level as the bizarre-looking animation, the film uses what is known as the "Scooby-Doo effect" (a term used by Scott Rogers in his book Level Up!) which is when the main characters are less detailed from the heavily detailed background to make them stand out from the rest of the scene.
3. The pacing in the film is very inconsistent throughout, with it either being very fast or very slow. For example, about six minutes into the film, we are already at the point where Gandalf visits Frodo after Bilbo left seventeen years ago, which took a little bit to get to in the book.
4. Another problem is that the film tries to accomplish its goal of getting through the plot in a rather short runtime of 133 minutes.
5. Related to the pacing issues, the film can be very boring in some scenes. As mentioned above, some of them seem to drag on for too long like the aforementioned "running of the orcs" scene and the battle of Helm's Deep.
6. Many things are not explained well in the film, leaving people who had never read the books or seen any other adaptation of Tolkien's work feeling very confused.
7. While it is decent, the voice acting in the film has its many fair shares of problems. Most of the time there is only a moderate amount of force being put into the dialogue, so it doesn't sound completely realistic.
8. False Advertising. The film being called The Lord of the Rings, as if the entire story of the books is in the film. However, only the events of The Fellowship of the Ring and only a little material from the last two books. Because of this, it would have made a lot more sense to call the film The Lord of the Rings: Part 1 rather than having the whole name. In retrospect, the final name was best since the sequel was cancelled, but this is still not the correct thing to do.
9. There are a couple of errors and reused footage in the film.
10. The character designs in the film also have their own fair share of problems.
11. There is a plot hole that carried over from the books: Why couldn't they use the Great Eagles to get to Mordor?
12. Many of the characters barely go through any character development in the story, unlike the books. This makes the characters in the film very one-dimensional.
13. The battle scenes are supposed to be some of the most exciting parts of the film, but due to the film's low budget and awkward-looking animation, they come off as more of a disappointment rather than being exciting.

Good Qualities

1. The film is at least very faithful to the books, and you can tell the creators of the film clearly had a deep respect for the source material.
2. The animation of the main and secondary characters is amazing, due to how the film uses rotoscoping techniques to make the movement more life-like.
3. In addition to the well-made character animations, the backdrops of the film are very nice to look at and are well detailed.
4. The musical score of the film, despite being somewhat forgettable, is very nice to listen to and knows what to do at the right times, such as having calm tunes when nothing dramatic is going on and bombastic and war-like in battles.
5. The story of the film is amazing just like the book, despite being unfinished.
6. Regardless of how strange it looks, the battle of Helm's Deep is very epic in scale, with hundreds of actors being used to act out the battle.
7. As mentioned above, the disappointing ending was somewhat fixed in the DVD re-releases.
8. While most do not have distinctive personalities, some of them remain untouched and are still engrossing, such as the wizard Gandalf.
9. There are quite a few scenes in the film that are very well done. One example is the scene where Frodo and company are hiding from the Black Rider on the road. Another is Boromir's final battle, where he is stricken by many arrows but stays alive long enough to defend Mary and Pippin and to warn Aragorn about the orcs.
10. the voices actors do very good jobs voicing the characters. william squire as gandalf and john hurt as aragorn in particular stand out.

Reception

The Lord of the Rings received mixed reviews from critics and audiences alike. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an aggregated critic score of 52% based on 42 critic reviews, with the consensus of "Ralph Bakshi's valiant attempt at rendering Tolkien's magnum opus in rotoscope never lives up to the grandeur of its source material, with a compressed running time that flattens the sweeping story and experimental animation that is more bizarre than magical." Roger Ebert gave the film two and a half stars out of four. He stated that the film was a "mixed blessing" and "The good news is that Bakshi has done an entirely respectable, occasionally impressive job of transferring to the screen Tolkien's detailed thousand-page epic fable of Middle Earth. The bad news is that good script, $8-million budget, and slam-bang animation aside, it still falls far short of the charm and sweep of the original story." David Denby of The New York Times felt that people who don't know the source material would not understand the film. In the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, a writer named Barry Langford pointed out many of the film's weaknesses, including the "glaringly evident" weakness of the rotoscoping techniques and also pointed out the quality of the acting which "wasn't great".

Despite the very mixed response, the film has won and been nominated for some awards. The film won a Hugo Award for "Best Dramatic Presentation". It was nominated for "Best Fantasy Film" at the Saturn Awards. The film's score was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Original Motion Picture Score. Director Ralph Bakshi also won a Golden Gryphon Award for his film.

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Trivia

• Ralph Bakshi also directed another fantasy film called Wizards and the first X-rated animated film, known as Fritz the Cat.
• Tim Burton worked on the film but was uncredited.
• Originally, the film was going to have Mick Jagger from the band The Rolling Stones to play Frodo in the film and Led Zeppelin was also going to make the original soundtrack for the film.
• For the CD-ROM edition of Interplay's The Lord of the Rings Volume 1 role-playing video game, some scenes from this film are used as cutscenes in the game.

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